Monday, December 9, 2013

THIS WEEK WAS MUCH BETTER THAN LAST WEEK, THANK YOU FOR YOUR PRAYERS! There were many reasons for that, your prayers, my companion, thinking and praying for Jess knowing she would be starting varsity and Nate knowing he had transfers. I felt a little bit like you guys feel when we have transfers when I felt that way for Nate. I feel optimistic and positive now. I'm glad Nate is staying with Elder Gooch, it sounds like they're tearing it up!

We found several new investigators this week, put several on baptismal dates and had a good time. My companion gave me some good advice, some of the which I am not sure is true, but we had a fun week overall. I exercised 5 days out of 6, the only day I didn't was because I had some dishes to wash and had to wash them. I did my pushups, but did less, and was ok with that. I did 432 today and less the other 2 days that I did them.

We visited a lot of people this week, few of which came to church, but it was alright. A less active family came to church, the Santos Sojo family, and one investigator, Ruben. His wife is a pretty much active member, she just makes sure to not come too much so they don´t give her a calling, but pretty much always comes. We were able to watch the Christmas devotional in one of the offices in the church with the branch president and his wife. Agustin and Karla came to church as well, they are recent converts who hadn´t come for the last 2 weeks. Karla told me while they were passing the sacrament that Agustin didn´t come to church 2 weeks ago because he drank, and wasn't sure if he should partake of the sacrament or not, I didn't know what to do and because he hadn't talked to the branch president yet I told him to take it, maybe not the best decision but oh well. They are really awesome, I like them a lot. They are like many people here, who have hardly any food to eat and give us everything they have.

Thank you so much for the letters, I really needed them this past week. You just reminded me, I did separations, or like, little mini interviews with the elders in our district on Tuesday after District Class, and was able to talk with and mostly listen to, and to some point help a missionary who was struggling and thinking about going home. He said many things to me that, like you and your clients, I can't tell you, but I can tell you that he doesn't have a dad and has had a really hard life. It felt good to listen to him and try to understand him. That was the second time in my mission that I have had the chance to do that, and I cherish every chance that I have to do it, just listen to the problems of others. Thanks for reading and studying and praying specifically for me, the time spent was not spent in vain. ……..

This week we had a funny lesson. We went to visit a less active member, and several of her daughters and daughters in law, and one of her friends were there, and after listening to them talk for a fairly long time about how good looking I was (no joke) we had a really good lesson with them. We started teaching them about the restoration and were able to answer a lot of their questions. The friend, the one that really liked me,(50 years old) had questions about Sin and Justice and Mercy, and I had just been reading about those things in Alma 42 and was able to really clearly answer her questions, with some of my best Spanish. It was one of those fun lessons when you don't have to think about what to say, but just speak, words just flow out of your mouth, and they are understanding and everyone feels the spirit, and it was just awesome!

Thursday, December 5, 2013

The San Blas Elders (Ben's companion, Elder Martinez, is the little one next to him)

So, this week went well. We had Zone Conference is Santiago and we took a test on Preach My Gospel and I got the highest score in the zone, but not to brag or anything, and Elder Martinez got the second highest score. I am just a little bit taller and wider than him, but just a little. We were able to visit many less active members and investigators this week and invite them to church. Many less active members came and a couple of investigators as well. I went on divisions with Elder Webb this week, he is my zone leader, we have the same time in the mission and it was fun to talk about how we will both be going home soon. It was fun, and a little tough at times because Elder Webb speaks REALLY good Spanish, like he knows how to tell jokes and talk slang and has a really good accent, so it was good and just a little bit hard because of that. I fasted for all of my converts so they will stay active in the church. I felt a little bit bad because I had a really easy time fasting this week, I was not hungry or thirsty and it was kinda weird. We ate A TON this week, first the huge sandwiches in zone conference. Then, we ate Thanksgiving with Sister Chellenberg and her family, and we ate several times Saturday, we ate a lot!

One of the sisters in the zone, and the zone conference sandwich

The three that finished their whole sandwich!

We had some good discussions this week, 73 came to church in total, not so great of a week. The sandwich was really good at zone conference. We ate all of the normal american food for thanksgiving. We ate pie and potatoes and gravy, stuffing, chicken, all of the normal good stuff. We have a ton of investigators, but only 1 of them is really progressing, her name is Nina. She came to church on Sunday. It was fun because she was not going to go, but we passed by to invite her Sunday morning and she came.One of the nice things of this week was being able to visit Karla and Agustin. They are a young couple who were baptized just a couple of months ago, they have not been to church in 2 weeks and we visited them 2 times this week. They are really humble, awesome people. When I am with Agustin I just feel like he is pure and awesome, he is the kinda guy I would've hung out with back at home. I am sure that they will be back to church next week. Also, Alicia, a less active member who had not been to church in my time here came to church on Sunday. And we also were able to gain the confidence of her sister, Mari, who is also a member and can´t come to church because she works on Sundays. Edgar and Andrea also came to church on Sunday, it was fun because we saw Andrea walking into church by herself and thought, "well, cool that Andrea came, but that stinks that Edgar didn't", but he had come in the other entrance on his motorcycle. We are hoping that they can be sealed in the temple soon. They both have more than a year as members of the church and I am pretty sure that they keep the commandments and are worthy to enter into the temple. Have they started construction on the Cedar City temple? Hopefully they have. I have got to go now. Thanks for the awesome letters you write to me each and every week. I pray for you guys often and thank God everyday for sending me to the family he sent me to, have a great week!